A Cat Can Look at a King

Humour is by no means the exclusive property of one side or the other in the class war. On the web site called “Butterflies and Wheels”, for example, you will find all sorts gathered together in the general humanist cause of lampooning the excesses of post-modernism, including some notable anti-Communists. Try their Amusements section at the top right-hand corner (“Fashionable Dictionary” &c). If you have ever been tempted to try Ayurvedic medicine, Meera Nanda’s exposé on the same site could save you a lot of grief. Even so, the anti-Imperialists do seem to have the edge in the humour department (please note the fashionable use of the word “seem” there). One such was the great Mark Twain, and Ben Tripp is well up to the Twain standard. See his “Nothing In the Kitty &c., linked below. Colleen Lowe Morna wrote in the linked Sunday Independent article below: “Ultimately, the solution to gender violence rests with changing attitudes and mindsets.” This is the official view to be presented at a surprise 3-day conference to be opened by the Deputy President of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on May 3rd. Lowe Morna writes coyly that the conference was “conceived by the government and civil society partners”. A little web research reveals that the venue is to be Kopanong Conference Centre, 243 Glen Gory Road, Norton Estate, Benoni, Johannesburg (Tel: 011 – 749 0000), and that the three sponsors are the Department of Provincial and Local Government, Bheki Nkonyane, 082 453 8363, Gender Links, Janine Moolman: 083 324 5024, and the National Prosecuting Authority: Thoko Majokweni 083 305 9639. The Minister of Provincial and Local Government is Mr. Sydney Mufamadi. The National Prosecuting Authority is synonymous with the Scorpions, the persecutors of the previous Deputy President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and formerly under the direction of Bulelani Ngcuka, husband of Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (he is now a newly-rich businessman whose company Amabubesi openly boasts: “Our association with decision-makers at the highest level enables us to influence strategic decisions in our country”). The Executive Director of Gender Links is Colleen Lowe Morna. Ja, well, no, fine. The Communist University’s initial concern is scholarly. The statement “Ultimately, the solution to gender violence rests with changing attitudes and mindsets” is not confirmed by our studies of the last three months. On the contrary, our studies have taught us, through dialogue and readings of Alexandra Kollontai, Angela Davis, Evelyn Reed, Teresa Ebert, and others that the way to approach the question of women’s’ oppression is along the historical materialist road, and not the route of police action and psychological regimentation. Not that the Lowe Morna view was unrepresented in our deliberations, just that it did not stand up to criticism, as it turned out. Oscar Wilde, in “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” wrote: “…it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought.” and “The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.” Not only poverty, we may certainly add, but also abuse of all kinds, and imprisonment, which Wilde himself was made to suffer during an earlier episode of police repression combined with psychological and moral enthusiasm. The anachronistic Lowe Morna – Mlambo Ngcuka demarche, with its seven pages of “emerged” bullet points, comes when the tide of post-modern “thought crime” theory is receding in the rest of the world, pursued with relief and with lampoons by resurgent reality-based humanist. We must surely hope that South Africa is not about to attempt a new embarrassing singularity, having escaped so recently from its previous one. Our discussion on Friday, May 5th, in the Women’s Jail, 1 Kotze Street, Constitution Hill will conclude the dedicated series “No Woman, No Revolution” with Meera Nanda’s “Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and Vedic science”. Nanda is the author of the book “Prophets Facing Backwards”. Click on these links: Nothing in the kitty but catshit, Ben Tripp, Counterpunch (1027 words) Surprise Mlambo-Ngcuka Conference on Women, Lowe-Morna, Sindy (1186 words)